All These Years

the lord of Ravenna
has been kind.
What was my secret?
Water, fire.
Philosophy and my memories
of Florence.
Of course I have
another life. A wife,
children who have joined
the academicians
in deciphering my verses.
I befriended scholars,
took short trips,
locked myself up
and grew weaker
struggling with my visions.
Bitter, a biographer
will say fifty years
hence, and that will be
that, Beatrice.